


The Twelfth Moon of AO3

by TheStrangeSeaWolf



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: (sorry to break it to you that way), AO3 is a planet, AO3 is real, Cliffhanger Horror, Cliffhangers, Fanfiction of Fanfiction, Fridge Horror, Gen, Humor, International Fanworks Day 2020, Universe of Unfinished Multichapter Fanfiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-12
Updated: 2020-02-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:06:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22653721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheStrangeSeaWolf/pseuds/TheStrangeSeaWolf
Summary: When the Doctor makes a small typing error on the TARDIS control a simple shopping trip to the twelfth moon of A3O goes terribly wrong. What is this strange moon and what is going on here?
Relationships: Twelfth Doctor & Clara Oswin Oswald, Twelfth Doctor/Clara Oswin Oswald
Comments: 4
Kudos: 26
Collections: International Fanworks Day 2020





	The Twelfth Moon of AO3

**Author's Note:**

> From the #IFDrabble prompt "characters discovering fanworks about themselves" for #IFD2020.
> 
> You really think nothing happens when you don't finish your multichapter stories? Are you really, really sure? The truth might be much more terrifying...

„Welcome to the twelfth moon of A3O, the moon of infinite shoe shops, orbiting the planet of infinite shopping possibilities!”

The Doctor exclaimed.

“Doesn’t look exactly like a shopping planet, Doctor,” Clara remarked, looking out of the TARDIS to a confusing landscape of mountains, beaches, castles, skyscrapers, woods and desserts, all crammed together in a strange way she never saw anywhere.

“Hmmm….” The Doctor checked the coordinates. “Oh.”

“Oh? ‘Oh’ like in: I discovered a really lovely new planet or ‘Oh’ in: I accidentally flew us to a planet with an atmosphere that is deadly for humans and you are going to die in the next few hours, sorry about that?”

“That was just once! I always check now! How long will you be resentful about that one time?”

The Doctor scowled at her.

“No, ‘oh’, like: I made a typing error. I typed ‘AO3’ instead of ‘A3O’. We are on the twelfth moon of AO3 now. How does it look? Shall we explore it anyway?”

He clasped his hands together, his eyes glistered with excitement and maybe a bit too much aspiration that he didn’t need to go shopping with Clara.

“Sure,” Clara shrugged and stepped out of the TARDIS.

They approached one of the castles when suddenly the bright day became night and a full moon appeared between some clouds. When they came near, a hunched figure at the castle gate groaned and developed into a werewolf. It howled and started running towards them. I a routine practiced throughout many adventures, Clara and the Doctor ran towards the next tree and climbed it.

To their surprise, the werewolf didn’t even notice them or tried to follow them. He just ran down the road and suddenly disappeared. Only seconds later, the hunched figure reappeared at the castle gate, transformed into a werewolf once more and ran down the now empty road, just to disappear again, reappearing a third time as a hunched figure at the castle gate.

“Odd.” The Doctor mumbled as the werewolf ran down the road again.

“Yeah, never seen anything like that!” Clara nodded.

“A lupus looping?” The Doctor asked, reading the scans from his screwdriver. 

Clara groaned at the pun and retorted:

“No, I was thinking that I never saw a werewolf with attack eyebrows before. Actually, it looked a lot like you. What do _you_ do when it’s full moon?”

“None of your business,” the Doctor grunted. “Let’s see what’s inside that castle, shall we?”

They climbed down the tree and passed the gate, ignoring the werewolf loop. They started walking down a corridor when they suddenly heard someone screaming for help from deep down in the castle’s vaults. The Doctor froze instantly and turned to Clara, staring at her, shocked.

“What is it, Doctor?”

“Clara, it’s you!”

“Yes, it’s me. I came here with you, remember?”

“No, no, that’s not what I mean, that voice from the vault down there, it is your voice!”

The Doctor grabbed Clara’s hands, just to make sure it was really her standing by his side.

There was the cry for help again. Clara and the Doctor ran downstairs to what seemed to be the dungeons of the castle. Suddenly, they heard someone running behind them and the Doctor pulled Clara to a small spare room near the landing of the stairs.

A lean figure ran past them and towards the cell where the voice came from.

“Clara!”

The figure shouted at the door.

“Doctor!”

A voice from inside shouted back.

“I get you out, my Clara, don’t you worry!”

Then the figure disappeared, and the voice started to scream for help again. Again, they heard steps on the stairs and a lean figure ran past them and towards the door.

“It’s definitely you, Doctor!” Clara said.

“This is how I look when I am running?”

“Yeah, like a penguin with its arse on fire!”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I figured inappropriate remarks about the back side of companions is what you bring into the equation, Doctor,” Clara shrugged.

The Doctor blinked at her confused just as his other self was passing them a third time.

“Well… As the werewolf has ignored us, I guess this…me… will as well, right? I suggest we explore a bit further.”

They passed the Doctor shouting at the door and went to the next cell. They looked through the small metal-grilled opening in the door to witness themselves kissing passionately, the Doctor with his hands shackled and his chest laid bare under his shredded shirt, while Clara’s feet were shackled with a long chain leading to the opposite wall.

“Oh,” the Doctor said and immediately turned his back, blushing.

Clara looked at the scene longer and figured out that it was looping, too. A little less obvious than the previous ones, but still noticeably, as she – or her twin, or her doppelganger, or the Zygon or whatever that was – removed the shredded shirt from the Doctor’s chest to stroke his muscular chest over and over again. Finally, she turned away, exhaling deeply.

“Oh my god, Doctor, I read that!”

“What do you mean? You read that?”

The Doctor was not able to look her in the eyes. He seemed still in a state of shock.

“Doctor, what is the planet called this moon we landed on is orbiting?”

“AO3. Why do you ask?”

Clara nodded.

“I… I can’t explain how this is possible, but I think I know why… there’s… us… all around here.”

“Clara, I doubt it’s us, because, seriously… that guy in there…” he pointed to the cell, still avoiding Clara’s gaze, “well, that body… this chest… Clara, it will probably give you… wrong… ideas.... about…” He fell silent and gesticulated vaguely to his chest.

Clara smirked amused.

“I know that much; you are a stick-insect, not a bodybuilder.”

The Doctor blushed even deeper. He changed topic.

“So, what was that theory of yours? What do you mean by: you read that?”

“Okay, Doctor, I read a fanfiction where exactly this scene we witnessed happens inside a medieval dungeon. There is that website on Earth called “Archives of Our Own”, short: AO3. It is a platform to publish fanfiction.”

“What’s fanfiction?” The Doctor blinked at her confused.

“People writing about their favorite characters. You know, let them have adventures that might not be in the original TV series, movie, game or comic. Like, you know, writing Robin Hood adventures that weren’t in a book or on screen.”

“Okay… I can imagine that for Robin Hood because he is just a fictional character. But Clara, you and I, we are real! How can people write about us when we are not fictional characters?”

Clara thought that the Doctor never had looked more like a startled owl than right now. She thought about how to break the news to him, but he looked so ultimately lost she decided to take another approach than the one she originally planned.

“Well, there are the so called RPF, too, fanfictions that are about people that really exist.”

The Doctor exhaled. He still looked confused, but a little less lost. Then he frowned.

“Wait a minute, you are saying that people are writing about… us…” he gesticulated between Clara and himself, “doing THAT?” He pointed to the cell door.

Clara nodded.

“Oh, dear Gallifrey, why?”

“Perhaps because it’s nice. Perhaps… because people would like to see us… you know… ahem… more involved? In a romantical sense?”

“What’s romantic about being shackled in a dungeon’s cell?”

“Oh, we don’t discuss what’s romantic for humans again, Doctor! Read that fanfic about it if you want to know! Besides, that’s not the question here.”

“Right, right!” The Doctor rubbed his face. “The question is that if that,” and he pointed to the cell door, “…and this,” and he pointed to the next cell where the Doctor shouted at the cell door, “are things that happen in fanfictions, then, why is it real here?”

“Exactly. And why is it not a complete story. Why do these incarnations of us loop in what seems about… what do you say… 3-minute loops?”

“2:30 in Earth time, to be exact,” the Doctor stated, relieved to be in familiar terrain again.

“Tangled up timelines?” Clara suggested.

The Doctor shook his head and started pacing up and down the corridor, nearly bumping into the other incarnation who didn’t notice him at all.

“No. No. No. No. No. Clara, think about it. If these are fictional characters… coming from the mind of authors… Clara, Clara, Clara, Clara, Clara… you said you have read that one story that goes on in there. I need you now. Clara, remember that one story! What happened in it, what happened before that? What happened afterwards. Clara, I need to know.”

He stopped his pacing and stared at her, eyes wide open, his nose only inches from her nose. Clara frowned, closed her eyes and tried to remember.

“As far as I recall… we were trapped by a medieval prince and incarcerated because you had killed an evil dragon who endangered his lands but refused to marry his daughter…”

“Well, that at least sounds a bit like me.”

“Yes, except that dragon slaying thing. And that in this story you didn’t want to have a feast because you were concerned about gaining weight. I considered this to be a bit out of character…”

“I didn’t want snacks?”

“Yes. But I guess that doesn’t get us anywhere… So, first the prince incarcerated me to force you to marry his daughter. And then you tried to free me. And then they caught and tortured you and shackled you in the same cell with me and I thought you were pretty sexy with your ripped shirt and I could walk around in the cell, because there was this long chain and so I…”

The Doctor had turned purple again and stared at his feet.

“Oh, wait… wait… I guess that’s it!” Clara exclaimed.

“What?” The Doctor didn’t take his eyes from his boots.

“That’s how the story ended! It was chapter 15 and it ended that way.”

“It ended with… us… kissing shackled in a dungeon? What a stupid way of ending a story is that?”

“Well, that’s kind of the point. It was a multichapter story, intended to have 30 chapters but after chapter 15 it was never updated! I think it was last updated 2015 or something like that.”

The Doctor and Clara looked at each other.

“I think I know now what happens here, Clara. Those people… those incarnations of us come from the minds of authors… they materialize here if their stories are not finished!”

“You mean… they are looping in the last two-and-a-half minutes of their latest chapter? In their own cliffhangers until their stories are updated?”

“I think so, yes. It is a theory, at least.”

They heard Clara scream again for help from the next cell.

“But Doctor, that’s like a personal hell for fanfiction characters! Cliffhangers are often painful situations! And they have to live through it over and over again!”

“I don’t think there’s anything we can do about that, Clara!”

They heard her screaming again. Then they heard the Doctor shouting at the door.

“But they are real. I mean, they are real in a way. Listen to her screaming. She’s in panic! And listen to him, he fears for her life! That could be us. It might even be us, if you look at it from a different angle. Doctor, we have to _do_ something about that! We have to save them from the loop. We have to free them!”

“I have never seen anything like that, Clara! I don’t know if there is something we can do!”

Clara stepped forward and took the Doctor’s hands in hers. She looked up to him and her eyes inflated.

“We have to try. Doctor, if you care about us in any way, you have to try and free us!”

**Author's Note:**

> This was a fun thing to write, have a great International Fanworks Day on the 15th, everybody! :)
> 
> A werewolf with attack eyebrows that remind me of my favorite incarnation? Oh yes, it exists, [see this comic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21282326/chapters/52010680).
> 
> BTW, the Doctor always struggles with the human concept of romantic, so Clara probably told him to read [this fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21536299).
> 
> And before you ask: Yes, I'm well aware how cruel it is to let a story about the cruelty of cliffhangers end with a cliffhanger.  
> I might add a chapter or two as solution if I feel like freeing them...


End file.
